Very short distance today between Swaziland and Mozambique, but there is a huge difference in the infrastructure, organization, road system, cleanliness, etc. The changes between these two countries are quite noticeable. I suppose that part of this may be because Mozambique is a much larger country with many more people in it. It’s comparable in size and, whereas Swaziland had a population of a little over a million people, Mozambique has well over 22 million. I would imagine that it’s a bit harder to keep things neat and clean with so many people.
It’s so refreshing for me to be traveling north my friends. Just knowing that I am on my up the continent of Africa and have reached over half of the continent gives me a small sense of relief that this portion of the mission will be coming to an ending at some point. It helps me stay focused as I can now see a small light at the end of the tunnel.
Another thing that makes me happy here in this country is that I get to travel along a small portion of the Indian Ocean coastline. It is refreshing and there is a different feel to it than there was on the Atlantic side of the continent. And its actually a bit warmer here than in Swaziland.
I am feeling comfortable already and am sending thanks to God for the few Spanish speaking skills that I have acquired over my travels. Since this country was once a territory of Portugal, Portuguese is the official language here. Though I definitely don’t have many skills in speaking that one, my Spanish is allowing me to get by fairly okay and at least helps me get my point across so that I can get my mission work done.
Remember, there are tons of different languages being spoken here in Africa every day. Luckily, the culture here is that there is also a lot of trade going on across countries and cultures, so the people tend to pick up on each each others languages fairly quickly. Even though they may not speak it perfectly, it is usually possible to carry on a brief conversation or make business transactions.
That fact has been my saving grace down here. I am especially fortunate in the arena of all of the media communication that I have done. Many of the journalists that I meet generally speak in their primary language, but because of their familiarity with either English, French or Spanish, we have been able to get by and I have been able to get my point across as far as the mission work is concerned.
Regardless of language, I have learned over the past two years that the most important qualities to have when communicating with others are those of tolerance, forgiveness, understanding and compassion for others. When you present those qualities, it often translates into showing respect for the other person, no matter what their culture is, what language they speak, what race they are, what country there are from, etc. When this magic happens, you end up finding solutions to many problems that may come up along the way.
I arrived in Maputo in the early afternoon and attacked work right away. There have been lots of times, folks, where upon arrival to a new country, I don’t even check into a hotel right away because I am trying to make my brief stay as productive as possible and get our message delivered to the people and the government in the most efficient and effective way possible. As a result, I am usually able to get my work done fairly quickly by taking advantage of official office hours, etc. to work and then do my personal business after hours in order to avoid spending days and days in one nation. Remember, our planet has 192 countries and if I ended up taking my sweet time then James would never finish anything, so I have to get to work right away when I arrive in each country and be as efficient as possible.
There have been many times where I don’t see anything in a country except what their media houses and Ministry of Foreign Affairs offices look like, unless I have to take a particularly long taxi ride in order to get there. This work is often in the capital of each country and so I am only able to see these two privileged perspectives as opposed to spending more time with the local people and exploring more of the regional nature that I would like. But my friends, we have to get the word out about Kosovo to as many people as possible and the way our mission runs, almost broke all of the time, I don’t want to take up our precious time or finances acting like a tourist. We have a serious request and I am on this mission in order to present our case for recognition to the rest of the world.
The media houses here in Mozambique were actually very receptive to our cause. Thank you to all of the wonderful journalists here who have helped our people by using their professions and positions in life to help us gain strength and recognition around the world. Thank you to my friends at the newspaper Noticias, Mr. Alcides Tamele and Mr. Aboobacar Amade for their valuable time in their help in sharing our mission and our cause with their country.
A big thank you to my friends at the national radio station, Radio Mozambique and Mr. Aderito Lipanga, a very detailed journalist who was well spoken and a very humble human being with great character.
Thanks to Mr. Adilson Mahomed Dos Santos Taju, with STV television and the newspaper O Pais, for his meticulous work and dedication to delivering a high quality story that would have great impact on his people. He actually had something prepared and played on television within just a few hours of our interview. And I can’t forget to thank Mr. Francisco Carmona, Redactor in Chief with newspaper Savana, who had lots of knowledge about Kosovo’s past history and our problems in the Balkans overall.
Finally, thank you to the wonderful team and Televisao de Mocambique (TVM) for their interest and to Mr. Admiro Feliciano and his cameraman Mr. Samuel Canda for their wonderful work during our interview.
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Antonio Bambissa, Directory Adjoint (Deputy Director) for the Europe and America’s Division was gracious with his time, even though I had no prearanged meeting scheduled. Vlora Citaku’s letter was hand delivered to him and he assured me that if there was anything that he was able to do in his power within the Ministry that he would do so to help further recognition of Kosovo as an independent nation.
Most of my taxi drivers were okay here in Mozambique, except for a few dishonest, unreliable, greedy drivers. I have been very lucky, folks, that this hasn’t happened to me more often during my mission and that, in general, most of my drivers have been quite helpful. I do want to thank Mr. Denis Vilancules though. He really helped me out during my stay in his country and helped me to gain the most productivity from my very short visit here.
After working on this mission for the last two years, I have been through so many changes, challenges and experiences, but one thing that does make me happy is to know that a majority of the nations that I have visited so far actually agree 100% that we should be considered an independent country. Two years ago, I would never have guessed that this was true.
But this does not mean that we should stop working on this cause now just wait for things to happen. We must still continue to demonstrate to our world that we are serious in this area and that we are ready to begin a relationship with all of the nations around the world. We must also take this opportunity to continue building relations with the countries that we have already visited. This does not mean that I should have to go back to every one of them for a follow up visit, but that each and every one of us begin to think of ways that we can contribute to furthering our nations position worldwide.
As Albanians and Kosovars, we each have a duty and an obligation to demonstrate our capacities to the world so that they will continue to hear our message. We must all use our individual talents that we have been given so that we can further contribute to society, the world, humanity, peace, etc. As a new nation, we have no choice now but to do our part and demonstrate to the world that we can show strength and perservere in being recognized and that we actually have the capacity to be stable politically, economically, socially, etc. We need to continue to harness the power that we have within all of our individual abilities in order to demonstrate to the world that, as a nation, we can become a contributing member to the world community and that we do not intend to settle for mediocrity. I hope that you all will find your own individual ways to help our country become stronger in these areas and live up to what we all know our Kosova can be.
Back here in Mozambique though, it looks like this country is trying to grow stronger as well. It is unfortunate, but this country maintained a civil war from the late 70’s through to the early 90’s. Because of that, there were many people who fled from here as refugees and the economy was not as strong as it could be. I see here though that they are trying to improve things since then and that there is great potential for future growth and success. There are many dynamic, hard working, welleducated, aware and wonderful people here too, like Kosovo, which puts both of our countries in a position to progress in a positive direction. All that remains to do is to put all of our talents to work and to use so that our nations can play an even bigger role in the world – for Kosovo with Europe and for Mozambique with Africa. Despite the common struggles that I see, things could turn around fairly easily if things move in the right direction.
Maputo overall seems very well develped, except for a few improvements that might need to be made here and there and looks fairly similar to any other European city that I have seen. There is some construction being started which is a positive sign for their economy I would guess and the locals tell me that most of the people who fled during the civil war have returned, which is also helping the economy to grow. It definitely takes a village to grow a nation and progress cannot be gained when there are only a few people here and there contributing to efforts such as this. There is tremendous opportunity to be made if we all begin to realize that we are all responsible for our future success and that we each have certain strengths that can be given towards leading us in that direction.
The next country for me will be Zimbabwe, which I am looking forward to visiting and seeing what progress has been made their after the sky rocketing inflation that they experienced a few years ago.
God bless our neighbor Mozambique.
